James Ross

James Ross is a British historian specialising in late medieval and early Tudor England. He is Reader in Late Medieval History at the University of Winchester, having previously worked for the History of Parliament Trust and as a medieval records specialist at The National Archives. His research focuses on kingship, royal government, the nobility and gentry, the Wars of the Roses and the political culture of England between the fourteenth and early sixteenth centuries. His other books include John de Vere, Thirteenth Earl of Oxford, 1442–1513 and Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford and Duke of Ireland, 1362–1392.

Ross contributed Henry VI: A Good, Simple and Innocent Man to the Penguin Monarchs series. The book reassesses a ruler whose long reign witnessed the loss of England’s remaining territories in France, financial crisis and the descent into the Wars of the Roses. Rather than presenting Henry VI simply as a passive or mentally incapable king, Ross examines how the king’s religious priorities, intermittent participation in government and failure to fulfil contemporary expectations of monarchy contributed to the political disasters of his reign.